Why do people bite their nails

Many people bite their nails when they are young, but some people still keep this habit when they grow up. Some people think that this is caused by habit, while others think it is obsessive-compulsive disorder. Although this habit may seem disgusting to outsiders, people who bite their nails are unaware of it. They have developed this habit and will feel uncomfortable if they don't bite their nails.

Why do you like to bite your nails? This can mainly be traced back to the care of your parents when you were a child. If your parents often stop you from this bad habit when you bite your nails, then you can quickly get rid of this habit. But if your parents do not stop you, it is only a matter of time before you develop a habit.

What do former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, pop queen Britney Spears and me have in common? We all love, or used to love, biting our nails.

I’m not proud of it. This habit is disgusting to onlookers, ruins the appearance of my hands, can be unhygienic, and sometimes can even hurt myself if I bite too hard. I tried to quit many times, but never managed to stick with it.

Lately I've been thinking about what it is that makes people develop a nail biting habit like mine. Are we weaker-willed? More neurotic? Hungry? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the psychological research record, and perhaps even clues on how to cure this bad habit.

I researched the literature for the first time in my life and found the medical name for excessive nail biting: onychophagia. Psychiatrists classify it as an impulse control problem, the same category as obsessive-compulsive disorder. But these are extreme cases, and like those with other excessive grooming habits such as skin picking or hair pulling, these patients may best need counseling.

My symptoms weren't that severe. Like most people who bite their nails, I continue to have this habit without any serious negative consequences. For example, up to 45% of teenagers bite their nails; teenagers may be a minority of the population, but it is indisputable that almost half of them need medical intervention. What I want to understand is the "subclinical" side of nail biting, that is, although it is not a big problem, it makes me feel unbearable.

Psychotherapists certainly have some theories about nail biting. Freud believed that the reason was that the development of the oral stage was inhibited. Typical of Freud’s theory, he believed that oral retention was caused by a variety of reasons, such as under-eating or over-eating, breastfeeding for too long, or a bad relationship with the mother. This leads to a host of consequences: nail biting, of course, but also a mean temper, smoking, drinking, and a love of oral sex. Other therapists suggest that nail biting may stem from an internal hostility. This is ultimately a form of self-harm or neurotic anxiety.

Like most psychodynamic theories, these explanations may be correct, but there is no clear reason to believe that they should be correct. The most important point for me was that they did not make any clear suggestions on how to cure this bad habit of mine. I'm a little confused about the breastfeeding level theory, and I bite my nails even when I'm most relaxed, so the neuroticism theory doesn't seem to make sense either. Needless to say, there has never been any evidence that treatments based on these theories have any miraculous effects.

Unfortunately, after this reflection, the quest seems to have reached a dead end. After searching the scientific literature, I found that there is little research on the treatment of nail biting. One report suggests that any therapy that makes people pay more attention to the habit seems to help, but beyond that, there is little evidence to support the habit. Several of the few articles on nail biting even begin by commenting on the surprisingly paucity of literature on the topic.

Old habits die hard

In the absence of earlier scientific treatments to draw on, I can only speculate on my own. So, here are my theories on why people bite their nails and how to treat it.

Let us call it the theory of “anti-theory”. I don't think there is any particular reason why we bite our nails, it's not related to breastfeeding, chronic anxiety or lack of maternal love. The advantage of this step is that we don't have to find some special connection between ourselves, Gordon, Jacqueline and Britney. I prefer to think that nail biting is a bad habit caused by a combination of factors that mix through random changes in the human body.

First, putting your fingers in your mouth is easy. This is one of the basic functions of feeding and grooming, so it is controlled by some very basic brain circuits, which means that it quickly develops into an automatic response. There's also a "tidiness" factor to nail biting, which is keeping your nails short, which means that, at least in the short term, nail biting can be pleasurable, although on a larger scale it can leave your nails tattered. This motivational element, coupled with the fact that it's effortless, means the habit is easy to develop; and apart from masturbation, it's hard to think of any other quick ways to give you short-term pleasure, and the advantage of nail biting is that it can be done at school. Once a habit is formed, it becomes a daily activity. There are many occasions in everyone's daily life when the mouth and hands are idle.

In our daily life, many people have a habit, and nail biting is just one of them. This habit, which is a pleasant reward for the brain, sometimes makes people feel disgusted. Although the problem of habit is that it is difficult to change, it is still possible to change it as long as you are willing to persist, although the process will be very difficult.